Miami suspects in court

Saturday

Jun 24, 2006 at 12:01 AM

BY CURT ANDERSONASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

MIAMI - Seven men, living together in a small, windowless warehouse. It was one of many things that made neighbors wonder.
They would exercise late at night on a concrete lot strewn with trash and debris. They sometimes covered their faces and dressed in camouflage. And someone was always standing guard.
"If you walked by, they would chase you away," said neighbor Tashawn Rose, 24.
"We were under the assumption that they were opening up a karate business," added 17-year-old Benjamin Williams.
Authorities said Friday the men were planning something much more sinister: trying to blow up the nation's tallest building, the Sears Tower, and other buildings with help from al-Qaida. They thought they had contacted someone from the terrorist network, but he was actually an informant for the federal government, officials said.
The seven men were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to destroy the structures, to wage war against the U.S. government and to aid a foreign terrorist organization. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stressed that there was no immediate threat in either Chicago or Miami because the group did not obtain explosives or other materials.
"This group was more aspirational than operational," FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said.
But Gonzales described the group as "homegrown terrorists" who "came to view their home country as the enemy." Five of those arrested are U.S. citizens.
Prosecutors said the men, operating out of the warehouse in Miami's blighted Liberty City neighborhood, took an oath to al-Qaida and plotted to create an "Islamic Army" bent on violence against the United States.
The men ranged in age from 22 to 32 and included a legal immigrant from Haiti and a Haitian who was in this country illegally. Investigators said all members of the alleged plot were in custody.
Five of the defendants, including alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste, appeared in federal court in Miami on Friday under heavy security. They were brought in and out in single file, chained together at the wrists and wearing ankle chains.
"While they may be seen as bungling wannabes, they are potentially dangerous wannabes who, based on the allegations, were pursuing extremely dangerous plans," said Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Florida.
A sixth defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, was arrested in Atlanta and made a court appearance there.
When asked about the charges in the indictment, Lemorin's attorney Jimmy Hardy said several times that the only person in the group with declared al-Qaida ties was the FBI informant. Lemorin's reaction to the charges, he said, "He has very serious charges he didn't expect and the normal person would be very concerned."
In addition to Batiste and Lemorin, the defendants are Stanley Grant Phanor, Patrick Abraham, or "Brother Pat"; Naudimar Herrera, or "Brother Naudy"; Rotschild Augustine, or "Brother Rot"; and Burson Augustin, or "Brother B."
Phanor did not appear in court. He was in custody on what authorities said was an unrelated state charge.
His father, Joseph Phanor, said he did not believe the charges against his son.
"This boy, he's not a violent boy. He never got into trouble. He didn't want to kill people," the elder Phanor said. Court records show that his son was convicted of carrying a concealed firearm in 2002 and sentenced to two years' probation.
Relatives described the defendants as deeply religious people who studied the Bible and took classes in Islam. The elder Phanor said his son went to classes on Islam with a friend but that he read the Bible at his father's house.
Prosecutors allege that Batiste began recruiting and training the others in November. The FBI learned of the plot from someone the defendants tried to recruit, authorities said. The FBI then arranged for an informant of Arabic descent to pass himself off as an al-Qaida operative.
Batiste met several times in December with the informant and asked for boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios, vehicles and $50,000 to help him build an "Islamic Army," the indictment said.
In February, Batiste told the informant that he and his soldiers wanted to attend al-Qaida training and planned a "full ground war" against the United States in order to "kill all the devils we can," according to the indictment. His mission would "be just as good or greater than 9/11," it said.
Batiste and a co-defendant provided the informant with photographs of the FBI building in North Miami Beach, as well as video footage of other Miami government buildings, and discussed a plot to bomb the FBI building, the indictment said.
Richard Shultz, professor of international security at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said that groups such as the one in Miami could pose a threat even if they do not make contact with al-Qaida.
"You don't have to go to Afghanistan like the internationalists did in the 1980s to join the jihadist movement; you can do it from your computer in Miami," he said.
No pleas were entered during Friday's court hearings. A federal magistrate scheduled another hearing for next Friday on whether to release the men on bail; Lemorin's bond hearing was set for Thursday.
The Miami magistrate appointed lawyers for Batiste and the four others who said they could not afford one.
Batiste told the court he was self-employed, a father of four and earned about $30,000 a year, but he provided no details.
It was "business as usual" Friday at Chicago's 110-floor Sears Tower and attendance was good at the 103rd-floor skydeck, said John Huston, the building's executive vice president. Tower officials issued a statement saying law enforcement says they have never found evidence of a credible terrorist threat against the building "that has gone beyond criminal discussions."
Sears Tower is a terror target once again, 6A